52.3 






■Ill 




ADDRESS OF D. F. HOUSTON 

Secretary of Agriculture 

BEFORE THE 

AMERICAN NATIONAL LIVE STOCK ASSOCIATION, 
DENVER, COLO., JANUARY 22, 1919 




WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1919 



d 9 #r s* 

FEB 15 19ig 






ADDRESS OF D. F. HOUSTON, 

SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE, 

BEFORE THE AMERICAN NATIONAL LIVE STOCK ASSOCIATION, DENVER, COLO. 

JANUARY 22, 1919. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

It is just two years, as the calendar rims, since I had the privilege 
©f addressing the members of this association. I had the pleasure of 
attending your meeting in Cheyenne the latter part of January, 1917. 
But, when we consider what has happened since that time, it seems 
as if a quarter of a century must have elapsed. More history has 
been made in the two years than in two generations. 

I remember very distinctly with what feelings I left Washington 
to go to Cheyenne. I remember that Germany had made promise 
after premise and had outrageously violated each promise and dis- 
regarded her solemn word. As I left Washington, the question was 
whether another solemn promise of Germany would be broken. Then 
I not only desired to meet the members of this association to under- 
stand more fully what was in their minds, and what we could do for 
them, but also to mingle once more with the people of the West to 
get a little reassurance. As my good friend, Senator Kendrick, will 
tell you, the waves of trouble, many of them real, many of them 
imaginary, beat in on Washington till the most hardened man gets 
a little sensitive, and, if he does not look out, a little cowardly. In 
such circumstances, it is good for him to get away from Washington 
and to mingle with the people. At the time of my trip many people 
in the East were asking " What about the West ? Are the people there 
not asleep? " A meeting had been held in Washington at which a 
proposal was made to send missionaries to the West to teach the 
people patriotism and to.wake them up. I was asked what I thought 
about it. I replied that I would not guarantee the safety of such 
visitors and that they would discover that the western people, as 
usual, were as wide awake as those of any other part of the Nation. 
When I returned to Washington I heard the same sort of talk. 
Then the note had come from Germany flatly repudiating every- 
thing that she had solemnly promised. Most of us knew what that 

103151°— 19 (3) 



meant, and people again asked, "Why, what about the West?" 
" Well," I said, " if you have any doubt about the West " — and they 
had, or they would not have asked the question — " go out and 
mingle with its people." I had a gentleman at my house one 
evening from the East and also Senator Kendrick. My eastern 
friend had been inquiring about the West, and I said, " Senator, 
what about the W T est? What about Wyoming? " I am going to quote 
the Senator whether he wants me to or not. He said, " Before I left 
Wyoming every man I saw and every man who wrote to me or tele- 
phoned me said: 'We are already in this war. We might as well 
recognize it, and everything that we are and everything that we have 
is back of the Nation.' " I thought I would let one of these west- 
erners answer the gentleman rather than to undertake to answer 
him myself, and I think he was satisfied. 

How many of you realized what it would mean when we took up 
that challenge of Germany, who wanted to know what we would do 
about it when she told us to stay at home and stay off the seas and 
keep our goods at home until she got ready to act differently? How 
many of you realized that in 18 months we would have three and a 
half million men in the Army and over two million of them in 
France, 3,000 miles across the water? Why, I remember talking, two 
evenings before we entered the war, with one of the ablest foreign 
ambassadors, and he said: "Of course, you are neutral, but if you 
should enter the war, my Government would not expect you to send 
more than a detachment to Europe to return the visit of Eocham- 
beau." A great many people thought that our part would be limited 
to economic and moral contributions; but you know how conditions 
changed. You know how Eussia, that great untrained people, who 
had been denied the things that the people of this Nation had had 
from the beginning, went to pieces; how Germany, mobilizing all 
her forces, gave us the most distressing period of the whole war from 
March until July, and how the American boys, cooperating with the 
Allies, struck the head of their advance at Chateau Thierry, Avhen the 
retreat began which has not stopped yet. 

THE WAR AND ITS RESULTS. 

Now, while we are still in a state of war. the fighting on any 
considerable scale is ended. And with what results? No man in 
this audience or in this Nation can yet appreciate what has happened. 
Governments and institutions, apparently the most firmly fixed in 
the world, have crumbled. The Romanoffs have disappeared, and 
the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs, and all the other little 
medieval hangers-on in Central Europe; redress of the outrage done 
to France in 1870 has been secured, and the firm beginnings of 
new nations on the basis of national interests and aspirations have 



been made. The Holy Land, after centuries, has been delivered; 
the Turks probably are about to be put out of Europe; a wave of 
democracy, which, for the time being - , naturally threatens to run 
a little too far, but which will partially recede and result in firm 
democratic arrangements in Central and Eastern Europe, has swept 
over that continent ; and a new Poland, a new Czech and a new Jugo- 
slav nation make their bows to the world. And with what spirit 
the whole people of this Nation confronted the grave problems 
before them and endured sacrifices; and not only the boys who went 
to Europe to vindicate our rights for world freedom and liberty, not 
only the boys, but also the men at home and the brothers and the 
sisters, and even more, the mothers ! 

THE SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE. 

It has been my good fortune during the war to go about from time 
to time among the people ; and it was as much as I could do to face 
an American audience and speak to it, because of the spirit I wit- 
nessed everywhere and of the obvious fact that the people were 
eager to do more than their part, to do more than anybody could 
wisely direct. This I was conscious of no matter where I went. I 
remember being in Montana recently, in the midst of one of Vhe 
most distressed districts I have seen. I Avas waiting for a tia,^ it 
a hotel in a little town when a man came in. He did not look very 
successful and I supposed he had come to discuss a loan or perhaps 
to make some complaint; but I was mistaken. "When I talked with 
him about the war I soon discovered I could not tell him anything 
about it, either as to its origin, its progress, or its meaning; and 
when he left me he said: " I have three boys in France. I suppose 
it would be too much to expect that I shall get them all back. I 
should like to, of course. I hope at any rate to g?.t two, or one of 
them; but no matter what happens, they will have made their con- 
tribution to the cause of liberty and civilization." I found that 
spirit prevailing everywhere. Is it not clear that a Nation per- 
meated with that spirit from top to bottom, and with no other 
motive than to bring freedom to the world, was invincible? 

Of course, you have had your troubles. You had your troubles 
during the war. You still have them. We all have them. They are 
part of the price we have to pay for safeguarding our freedom. It 
has been difficult for us to turn our minds from the task of winning 
the war to the tasks of peace. 

I experience the same difficulty in directing my mind from war 
that a very brilliant Polish gentleman and friend of mine does in 
directing his thoughts from his new nation. You know we have 
recently had a good many new foreign governments in Washington. 



6 

We have had the president of the Czecho- Slovaks and the president 
of the Polish Nation with his aid, a gentleman who has been living 
in this country for several years. This aid has been so interested in 
Poland and so excited about Poland that, no matter what he was 
discussing, every few seconds his mind would come back to Poland 
and he would talk about Poland. 

One day he became aware of this failing a nd said he was reminded 
of a story. A French natural history society desired to know more 
about the elephant and offered a large prize for the best paper. It 
received many. It received one from a Frenchman, who took as his 
subject, '"The Elephant and His Loves"; one from an Englishman 
who took as his subject, " The Hunting of Elephants and Other Big- 
Game in the Wilds of Africa"; one from an American, with the 
subject, "The Elephant and His Utilization in Transportation"; 
one from a German, with the title, "A Brief Introduction to the 
Study of the Development of the Nasal Bone of the Elephant"; and 
one from a Pole, who selected the subject, " The Elephant and the 
Polish Question." 

We are all like the Pole: We can not easily turn our minds away 
from what they have been so intensely dwelling upon ; we can not get 
away from the war; and, of course, we shall not get away from it for 
a long time. 

THE AGRICULTURAL SITUATION. 

But we are turning to our new problems and they are numerous 
and difficult. People are asking what the agricultural situation is 
and what ought to be done. They ask what suggestions we have to 
make to the producers of the country. Now, we made many sugges- 
tions to the producers of the country during the war. We urged 
them to increase production. We had definite programs. You know 
how the farmers, including the cattlemen, responded to the appeals 
of the Government and reacted under the economic stimulus. In 
spite of all the troubles, in spite of labor difficulties and adverse 
weather conditions, the farmers of this Nation planted in leading- 
cereals alone 38,000,000 more acres in 1918 than they had planted on 
the average in peace times. The live stock producers increased every 
class of live stock during the war. The report of the Bureau of Crop 
Estimates on live stock is just out. It shows that, since the European 
war began four years and a half ago, the number of horses increased 
570,000, the number of mules 470,000, milch cows 2.7 millions, other 
cattle 8.5 millions, swine 16,700,000, 5 millions within the last year, 
and sheep, in the last two years, by about 2.1 millions, somewhat over 
a million each year since we entered the war. 

Our farmers increased the wheat acreage for the 1918 crop over 
the prewar five-year average by 12 millions and produced about 918 



million bushels. They planted last fall 7 million more acres than the 
record of the preceding- year, or 49 million acres. And now we are 
confronted with a very interesting problem. We do not know what 
the spring planting will be or how the wheat will come through the 
winter; but it entered the winter in much better condition than usual 
and is making good headway. The indications are that the spring 
planting will be largo. We may have from 1,000,000,000 to 1,100,- 
000,000 bushels. We need for domestic purposes about 650,000,000 
bushels. 

The question is whether we can sell the crop at the guaranteed 
price. Eemember that this crop will not come in until next summer 
and fall and that conditions will change in the world by that time. 
Every nation in Europe will leave nothing undone to secure a larger 
production of things from winch it can get a quick response. Ship- 
ping is opening up. Australia, where the price of wheat is $1.18, 
will come into the market with her reserves and her new production. 
Argentina and Algeria, the latter with a surplus now of 25 millions, 
will have fair crops. 

It seems highly improbable that the market conditions a year from 
how will be such as to cause the European nations to take our surplus 
at the price fixed by the Government. They will not do so if they 
can get wheat cheaper elsewhere. The producer must gQi the guaran- 
teed price for the wheat he markets, and if the price falls 1 cent or 
50 cents or $1 below the guaranteed price the Government will sus- 
tain a loss. The only way to effectuate the guarantee and to carry 
out the pledge of the Government made during the war — and remem- 
ber that Congress had voted a higher guarantee, which the President 
did not sanction — is for the Government to handle the wheat and sell 
it at the market price. We may not lose anything; we may have to 
put up hundreds of millions. 

This will serve as an illustration of the difficulty confronting us. 
It is only one of many. There is no little confusion of the public 
mind arising from a failure to distinguish clearly between present 
supplies and needs and those of the future, and to recognize that 
production plajas must be made for the current season and year in 
view of changed and changing conditions. Somebody says : " Europe 
is starving. We must send loads of things over there. Therefore, 
tell the farmers to get busy and to produce, produce, produce, re- 
gardless of consequences.*' Those who are doing most of the talkino- 
are thinking only of present European needs and aA^ailable supplies. 
But the condition a year from now may be quite different. A pro- 
duction season intervenes. Europe will plant everything she can. 
Her present pressing needs will have been met. Clearly anyone will 
assume a grave responsibility who, listening to these appeals, under- 
takes to incite the American farmer to unlimited production, who 



8 

does not harvest until next summer and fall and who must take the 
hazards of the weather and the risks of the market. 

The president of your association said yesterday that the depart- 
ment and the Food Administration were urging very great increases 
in production. They did so before the fighting ended. Their liter- 
ature which your president had in mind was put out while the war 
was still on. Conditions have altered, and we must recast our plans 
with changed conditions. I am very much in doubt whether one can 
safely give the American farmer to-day other advice than that he 
should follow the best agricultural practice and make his plans to suit 
his particular conditions and the conditions in his region. During the 
war we have done things that were not based on good agricultural 
practice and not calculated, in the long run, to produce the best re- 
sults. While I think that the world market for available supplies 
will be such as to keep their prices at a remunerative level, I am not 
prophet enough to say what the conditions will be after the next 
harvest and at a more distant date when the products of your present 
live-stock planning and operations will appear on the market. 

INCREASING POPULATION AND LIVE-STOCK NEEDS. 

There are certain things, however, that we may keep in mind. We 
know, of course, that Europe will have difficulty in making full re- 
covery in respect to her live stock. In England, live stock has been 
prudently conserved. Her herds have been preserved, especially her 
breeding animals, and England will recover quickly. France has 
been harder hit. There are no accurate estimates as to how much 
her stock has been reduced. Switzerland has kept her herds. They 
have not produced as much during the Avar as before; but they are 
relatively intact. Germany and Austria have suffered greatly. There 
will probably lie a continuing substantial demand for meat products. 
To what extent there Mill be demand for breeding animals is an- 
other question because European countries will be very conservative 
in introducing breeding stock from this country, or from places to 
which they have not heretofore looked. 

We may bear this in mind also: This is a growing Nation, growing 
so fast that very few people keep up with it. How many of you 
realize that in 15 years, from 1900 to 1915, we gained a population 
of 24 million, a population greater than that of any South Ameri- 
can country except one, and greater than that of any South American 
country in point of producing and consuming capacity, a popula- 
tion three-fifths that of France. We have gained 3.5 millions of 
people during the European war. I assume that we shall gain at 
the rate of a million or more for the next 20 or 25 years. Now, while 
the increases I gave a moment ago are large and gratifying, they were 
due to the existence, of recent peculiar conditions; and Ave must 
recognize that live-stock production in this country has not kept up 



with increasing population. The number of cattle in 1918 is given 
at 44 million, but we had about 42 million at the 1910 census. The 
increases are recent. We have got to plan for a population in the 
next 20 years of 20 million or 25 million more, and we must make 
our plans now. We can not largely develop the live-stock industry 
overnight or wisely alter their permanent foundations quickly. 

FARMING MUST PAY. 

In making these plans, we must base them on sound economic 
considerations, looking to their foundations of feed, of pasturage, 
and of grazing. We have to keep one fact in mind which city 
people especially seem to ignore. There is more nonsense talked 
about farming and about getting people to go into farming and to 
stay in farming than about any other one thing. People are con- 
stantly crying, " Back to the land ! " They seem to think there 
can be an indefinite number of farmers. Now people are going 
into farming and are going to stay on farms if farming pays and 
if country life is attractive, and not otherwise; and just enough 
people will stay on farms to produce the supply the Nation and 
the world seek at a price which will justify it. I am pestered 
no little by city people who ask, " Why do you not continue to urge 
the farmers to produce and to produce and to produce?" Of course, 
that would be very nice for them, especially if they could get the 
products for nothing; but that is not the way agriculture proceeds. 
It must show a reasonable profit. This does not mean necessarily 
that prices need stay at the present level and continue to rise. It 
may be possible to reduce costs. They will fall with the return of 
normal conditions. We may lessen them by controlling or eradicat- 
ing animal and plant diseases. You, the department, the agricul- 
tural colleges, and other agencies are engaged in this task. 

REGULATED GRAZING. 

We can help also by improving grazing conditions. We have 
greatly bettered them in the National Forests. I have been advocat- 
ing for six years something that seemed to me obvious from the be- 
ginning, that there should be improvement of grazing on public 
lands. The Department of Agriculture has been urging this for 15 
years. The Department of Agriculture has been urging classification 
of public lands, not that there should be a rigid classification which 
could not be changed, but one which might be reconsidered at fre- 
quent intervals. 

Clearly grazing should be regulated on the public lands so that 
they may support many more animals. I was glad to hear a repre- 
sentative of the Department of the Interior say yesterday that he is 
now in favor of this policy. I have been surprised that he has not 
been in favor of it from the outset. We tried to get the Kent bill 
through. It might have gone through if there had been a favorable 



10 

report on it from both departments. Now comes the suggestion at 
this late day from the Interior Department that there should be 
regulated grazing on the public domain, that it should and must be 
handled by that department, that there should not be two agencies 
controlling grazing, and that, therefore, the National Forests should 
be turned back to the Interior Department. And why ? Because that 
department holds the title to the laud and the Government would not 
think of transferring title to another department. 

A trifle amusing, is it not, both the reason and the proposal? The 
title to land in the National Forests is in the Interior Department, 
and the grazing in them is regulated by the Department of Agricul- 
ture. Obviously, if the Government wished, that department could 
regulate grazing on the public domain outside the forests with title 
still lodged in the Department of the Interior. Or even the latter de- 
partment might keep title and apply to the public lands grazing 
regulations similar to those enforced by the Department of Agri- 
culture in the forests. The reason assigned is not pertinent and can 
not be controlling. 

All the reasons are against the proposal. The control of grazing 
should not follow the location of land title. It should follow the 
location of expert agricultural knowledge and successful experience. 
Grazing is an agricultural problem and should be handled by agri- 
cultural experts. Land lawjers can handle and should continue to 
handle land titles, but I do not believe that they can or should handle 
live-stock problems. Would it not be a little singular to transfer 
regulated grazing from the department which has favored it from 
the beginning, made a success of it, and demonstrated its value, to 
one which has had no experience with it and no facilities for con- 
trolling it? 

Grazing is not the only agricultural activity in the National For- 
ests. There are others. There are problems of reforestation and 
of insect, game, and predatory animal control. The services of a 
number of bureaus of the Department of Agriculture are con- 
stantly and increasingly required, such as Forestry, Animal In- 
dustr} 7 , Entomology, Biology, and Markets. Forestry problems are 
mainly agricultural problems. Why, this meeting has seemed to me 
to be a sort of conference of the Department of Agriculture. A 
considerable part of the speech of your president dealt with the 
Department of Agriculture. Most of your speakers yesterday and 
to-day have been drawn from its staff. 

I have no personal interest in this matter. It would save me a 
great deal of trouble if I had nothing to do with it; and, after a 
few years at most, I shall not have anything to do with it; but I 
am interested in the merits of this question and in seeing it properly 
handled. I repeat that grazing, the handling of live stock, the con- 



11 

trol of predatory animals, of poisonous weeds, of reforestation, of 
marketing are all agricultural problems and the Department of the 
Interior could not properly deal with them unless it took over the 
Department of Agriculture or built up a duplicate of it. 

SOME CONSTRUCTIVE PROPOSALS. 

I wish very much that I might speak to you about some other 
things. We have very definite constructive proposals in mind — to pro- 
mote profitable agriculture and to develop a more attractive country 
life. In fact, nearly everything being done by your association and 
similar associations, by the Department of Agriculture, with its 
23,000 people, and the State colleges, constitutes an attack, a per- 
sistent and quiet attack, on the problem of profitable agriculture and 
better rural life. Their work is not spectacular. You do not hear 
much about it, especially in the city; but men and women of the de- 
partment and the colleges are working hourly in season and out of 
season without advertisement, and are getting results. I sometimes 
think it is almost a mistake to do things as well as some of our people 
do them, because they do not have time to get on the housetop and 
shout about it, and many people do not seem to think anything is 
being done if they do not hear a lot of shouting. 

I think we ought to speed up our road building. I need not 
argue the value of good roads. I have suggested, with the Presi- 
dent's approval, that we increase the Federal funds to be used to 
supplement the Federal aid road appropriation, not only because 
roads are indispensable, but also because public work of this sort 
may profitably be extended for the purpose of furnishing employ- 
ment to surplus labor during the transition period. I am suggesting 
that a part of the additional funds be used for further construction 
of roads in the National Forests. 

I wish I had time to speak of marketing and of the Bureau of 
Markets. Mr. Brand has had a difficult task in organizing his great 
service, the greatest of its kind in the world to-day. He has de- 
veloped it from nothing, having to get men for work of great diffi- 
culty for which few men had been trained. The bureau is now spend- 
ing something like $4,000,000 to aid the producers of this country to 
distribute their products to better advantage. I need not tell you 
that distribution is at least the second half of agriculture; and yet 
some gentlemen are complaining because we wish enough money to 
enable us to maintain our present undertakings. One part of the 
service alone is worth what the Government is spending on the 
bureau. I refer to the market news service. I can not take time to 
explain what it is doing. You know of some of its work and value 
it. I fear that service will be cut down. In my judgment it ought 



12 

to be expanded. Four millions of dollars is not too much to spend 
to try to aid the farmers of this Nation in marketing their products. 

REGULATION OF STOCKYARDS AND PACKING HOUSES. 

There are parts of our marketing arrangement in "which you are 
and have been deeply interested. I refer to the stockyards and the 
packing houses. Two years ago I expressed my views before this 
body on the necessity of controlling these agencies. I have been con- 
vinced for many years that the Government should regulate them. 
I have really got beyond the point of seeing the necessity for further 
argument. Not only you, but all the people of the Nation, are 
intensely interested in what happens in the stockyards and the great 
packing houses. Their operations affect every man, woman, and 
child in this Nation. 

These establishments, as the lawyer would say, are largely affected 
with the public interest. I do not know what percentage would 
express the public interest, but it would not fall very far short of 
100 per cent. The people of this Nation are not willing to let a 
few men have an absolute determination of what happens in them, 
of what happens to the live stock of the Nation from the time plans 
are made for its production on the farm until it reaches the con- 
sumer. There is too much at stake. The fortunes of too many 
people are involved. Of course, those in control of the packing 
houses and the stockyards say that everything is just right. As 
Senator Kendrick says, they admit it. They have admitted it to 
me. They even spend great sums of money in the newspapers mak- 
ing admission of it. One of the chief representatives of the packers 
told me several years ago that the whole business was as clean as a 
hound's tooth and that there was nothing to be apprehensive about. 
I replied that, unfortunately, the people did not seem to believe this. 
They had their suspicions. I added: "If what you say is true, the 
people ought to hear the truth from an impartial source. It would 
be good business for you to have the people told the facts by an 
impartial authority, and good business for you to be rid of the sus- 
picion that attaches to your statements and operations." Again, 
they admit that they have the requisite wisdom to handle these great 
establishments. They admit that they can handle them better than 
anybody else. They are wiser than all the people. That is what the 
paternalists, the favored few, have said from the beginning of 
history. That is the essence of the old medieval theory of govern- 
ment. A few men are wiser than all the people. Of course, I do 
not admit that. I do not admit that the few men in control of the 
packing houses and stockyards are wiser than all the stockmen of the 
Nation and all the consumers. I do not believe that they should be 
permitted, uncontrolled, to determine all the issues in which the 



13 

public is so vitally interested. If I had to admit that they possessed 
all the wisdom they say they do, then I would go further and say 
that I would prefer to have a little less wisdom, a little less paternal- 
ism, and a little more freedom, and, if necessary, to pay the differ- 
ence. 

I do not profess to have enough wisdom in a final way to indicate 
the items of the necessary legislation. Several proposals are pending 
in Congress. My opinion is that the Kendrick bill embodies the 
correct principle of action and furnishes the best basis for discussion 
and criticism yet presented. I believe that, with such amendments 
as may be proposed as the result of full consideration, that measure 
would probably accomplish the purpose you and all of us have in 
mind. It may not prove to be perfect. Very few measures do. If 
it does not, it can be amended; and if regulation and control should 
fail, then the time will have arrived to take the next step. 

FUTURE TRADE AND EUROPEAN HANDICAP. 

You are naturally interested in the probable course of trade now 
that the fighting has ceased. Many people are showing interest in it. 
Many of them are writing to me asking what I think of the future. 
Some of them seem to be apprehensive. They seem to be alarmed 
lest Europe should flood the markets of this Nation with cheap 
goods, alarmed lest this Nation may not be able to hold her own 
proper place in the markets of the world. 

Apparently, there are those still left who believe that one nation 
can not profit except at the expense of another; who believe that a 
nation does not profit unless it exports useful commodities and 
imports nothing except gold. They do not seem to realize that this 
process can not be continued for a long time. They are unaware 
that too much gold even may be hurtful. 

The things that any nation really wants are services and com- 
modities. These a nation can not get except by furnishing services 
and commodities. This country has been for many years an ex- 
porter of agricultural products. Before the European war you will 
find tipon examination that the excess of our agricultural exports 
ranged from three hundred millions to four or five hundred millions 
of dollars. 

But people ask if this will continue. They ask if Europe will not 
now have a relative advantage. They seem to assume that Europe 
has had time to pile up masses of commodities for export and that 
Europe will possess from this time forward great masses of cheap 
labor. How inadequately they seem to have pictured the present 
actual conditions in Europe. Think of it. They tell us that in 
Europe, outside the Balkans and Turkey, more than 7 millions 



14 

of men have boon killed and 14 millions wounded, many of tliem 
permanently incapacitated. We know there are great numbers of 
widows and orphans. We are aware of the destruction of property, 
of shipping, of the economic, social, and political disruption. Clearly 
it will take the powers of Central and Eastern Europe many years 
to lay the firm foundations of modern democratic governments, to 
set them in full operation, and to restore normal economic conditions 
and processes. The masses of the people in these sections will for the 
first time have something to say about economic and governmental 
matters. They will have something to say about their conditions 
and standards of living, and it is unthinkable that they will permit 
a return to former conditions. 

Obviously, they will be greatly burdened also with war debts. It 
is probable that the war debt of England will equal 30 per cent of 
her estimated real wealth; that of France 50 per cent; of Germany 
45 per cent; of Austria 65 per cent; and of Italy 30 per cent. In 
each case the annual interest charge will be as great as the former 
national budget or greater; and in every case provision must be mads 
for a sinking fund. Yet some of our people seem to fear that this 
Nation, industrially almost untouched by the war, can not hold its 
own with stricken Europe. Should our thought not be rather how we 
can aid the people of Europe to get on their feet once more and to 
contribute in full measure to the world's dividend of useful com- 
modities ? 

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS. 

The hour is too late for me to say much more. I can not close, 
however, without speaking of a subject which is uppermost in my 
mind. We have won a great fight. We have safeguarded this coun- 
try from a terrible menace. For the last time, in my judgment, has 
the freedom of the world been seriously menaced by the will and 
power of despots. No arrogant governing body in the world is likely 
again to challenge the free nations of the world. Germany made a 
serious mistake in challenging the free nations of Europe; she added 
tc it greatly in challenging this Nation. Germany made many mis- 
takes, but none so fatal as that of thinking that anything her sub- 
marines could do to the Allies would be appreciable in comparison 
with what this Nation would do to her if she entered the war. I 
say that this menace is past. Germany will be incapable at least for 
many years of threatening any of the great nations. She will have 
all she can do for some time to cope with her domestic problems. 
This fortunate outcome justifies in no small measure the sacrifices of 
our boys and of our people at home; but the justification and satis- 
faction will be incomplete unless we secure at this time some kind of 
concert of action on the part of the civilized nations which will 
prevent a recurrence of this tragedy. 



15 

I am not prepared to offer a concrete scheme of a League of 
Nations. We doubtless shall not be able to evolve at this time a 
full-fledged and final plan. We can make a beginning. We must 
have a system of international law that will have a sanction, a suffi- 
cient body of law which will reflect the common purposes of civilized 
nations. Of course, nations have very much in common. They have 
been drawn closer and closer together within our own generation. 
Every day witnesses a closer union. The nations of the world to-day 
are nearer together than our States were a few generations ago. 

Some seem to fear an impairment of our independence if a League 
of Nations is formed. Of course, in a very real sense we are not 
completely independent. No nation in the world to-day is com- 
pletely independent. Recently we have more fully discovered that 
every nation is dependent upon every other nation. We have found 
that part of the world can not go to war without involving every 
other part. I do not believe that the development of real inter- 
national law with a sanction and the formulation of a proper League 
of Nations will restrict our freedom or independence. On the con- 
trary, it will increase it. Good laws, whether municipal, national, 
or international, do not limit freedom. They extend it. They 
restrict the activities only of the criminals and the desperadoes. I 
believe that provision can be made whereby the entrance of nations 
into war can be retarded, and, in many cases, prevented. I believe 
that many international troubles can be settled by orderly processes 
just as individual and national troubles are settled. I am not ap- 
prehensive that the Monroe Doctrine shall be invalidated. I believe, 
rather, that what is proposed will be in the nature of an extension 
of that doctrine over the world. I for one shall feel greatly de- 
pressed if there is not enough wisdom and unselfishness in the world 
to permit the conference now being held in Paris, to which our 
President went with his eyes open, knowing the difficulties as well 
as the supreme importance of action, to arrive at an agreement which 
will have the result of placing the combined force of civilized nations 
as a barrier to a recurrence of such a crisis as that through which 
we have passed. 

May we not all look at this matter in a broad spirit of humanity 
and not from the lower plane of partisanship? We have stood to- 
gether during this war as a people have never before stood together. 
It has enabled us to win the war and to win a cause. Do not the tasks 
of peace warrant an equal spirit of patriotic devotion and unity of 
purpose? Of course, I realize that there will be differences of opin- 
ion. I believe in parties, but I do not believe that, to have parties, it 
is necessary to have appeals to prejudice and a riot of misrepresen- 
tation. If all the facts bearing on questions at issue were available, 
if, so to speak, all the cards were on the table with their faces up, 'hi 'e 




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16 

would still be room for differences of opinion and for the formation 
and conduct of parties. 

Lot the public demand that their representatives be big enough and 
broad enough to deal with the facts and nothing but the facts, to 
interpret them to the best of their ability and conscience and to 
follow their conclusions regardless of consequences. Democratic 
government will be sufficiently difficult if we apply this standard. 
If we permit any other to prevail, its future will be full of doubt. 
Let us remember the blessings of our institutions and keep before 
us their real spirit and meaning. Let us see to it that those who 
come among us from other countries not so favored, whose inheri- 
tance makes it difficult for them to understand the meanings and\ 
purposes of democratic institutions, shall catch their significance and 
especially be made to understand that here we have a rule of law 
and not of whim or of force. 

There are some of Our people who need an induction into the spirit 
and meaning of democracy. They must be taught that here any good 
cause can get a hearing, that those who advocate it must convert the 
majority, and that the majority will not permit any reckless, mis- 
guided minority to attempt to secure its purpose by violence. 

O 



Gaylord Bros. 

Makers 
Syracuse. N, Y. 
PAT. MM. 21. 190* 






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